The Internet is a global network of computers and computer networks (the “Net”). The Internet connects computers that use a variety of different operating systems or languages, including UNIX, DOS, Windows, Macintosh, and others. To enable communication among these various systems and languages, the Internet uses a language referred to as TCP/IP (“Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol”). TCP/IP protocol supports three basic applications on the Internet:                transmitting and receiving electronic mail,        logging into remote computers (the “Telnet”), and        transferring files and programs from one computer to another (“FTP” or “File Transfer Protocol”).        
With the increasing size and complexity of the Internet, tools have been developed to help find information on the network. These tools are often called navigators or navigation systems. Navigation systems that have been developed include standards such as Archie, Gopher and WAIS. The World Wide Web (“WWW” or “the Web”) is a recent and superior navigation system. The Web is:                an Internet-based navigation system,        an information distribution and management system for the Internet, and        a dynamic format for communicating on the Web.        
The Web seamlessly integrates various kinds of information, including still images, text, audio and video. A Web user with a graphical user interface (“GUI”, pronounced “gooey”) may transparently communicate with different host computers on the system, different system applications (including FTP and Telnet), and different information formats for files and documents including, for example, text, sound and graphics.
The Web uses hypertext and hypermedia. Hypertext is a subset of hypermedia and refers to computer-based “documents” in which readers move from one place to another within a document, or from one document to another, in a non-linear manner. To do this, the Web uses a client-server architecture. The Web servers enable the user to access hypertext and hypermedia information through the Web and the user's computer. (The user's computer is referred to as a client computer of the Web Server computers.) The clients send requests to the Web Servers, which react, search and respond. The Web allows client application software to request and receive hypermedia documents (including formatted text, audio, video and graphics) with hypertext link capabilities to other hypermedia documents, from a Web file server.
The Web, then, can be viewed as a collection of document files residing on Web host computers that are interconnected by hyperlinks using networking protocols, forming a virtual “web” that spans the Internet. A resource of the Internet is unambiguously identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which is a pointer to a particular resource at a particular location. A URL specifies the protocol used to access a server (e.g. HTTP, FTP, and so forth), the name of the server, and the location of a file on that server.
Each Web page may appear as a complex document that integrates, for example, text, images, sounds and animation. Each such page may also contain hyperlinks to other Web documents so that a user at a client computer may click on icons with a mouse and thereby activate hyperlink jumps to a new page on the same or a different Web server.
A Web server is a software program on a Web host computer that answers requests from Web clients, typically over the Internet. All Web servers use a language or protocol to communicate with Web clients which is called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”). All types of data can be exchanged among Web servers and clients using this protocol, including Hyper Text Markup Language (“HTML”), graphics, sound and video. HTML describes the layout, contents and hyperlinks of the documents and pages.
Web clients when browsing, convert user specified commands into HTTP GET requests, connect to the appropriate Web server to get information, and wait for a response. The response from the server can be the requested document or an error message. After the document or an error message is returned, the connection between the Web client and the Web server is closed.
After receipt, the Web client formats and presents the data or activates an ancillary application such as a sound player to present the data. To do this, the server or the client determines the various types of data received. The Web Client is also referred to as the Web Browser, since it in fact browses documents retrieved from the Web Server.
Through web browsers, interactive electronic services, video-on-demand, and the World Wide Web are providing access to an increasing offering of movies, shopping information, games, multimedia documents, electronic commerce and many other services. During the last several years, due mainly to the widespread use of personal computers and the capability of millions of users to access the World Wide Web, “multimedia publishing” has veritably exploded. Due to the widespread penetration of CD-ROM drives, an enormous number of multimedia titles combining text, images and sounds, are now accessible to owners of personal computers. Further, a vast store of hypermedia information is today accessible via the Internet on the World Wide Web.
A major problem in using these multimedia systems is to browse the enormous variety and quantity of information, to discover what is available, and to make a selection among all the possible choices. For example, when surfing on the Web, a conventional method of navigating across many pages of hypertext documents consists of using search tools or invoking bookmarked links. When surfing video-on-demand services, a conventional navigation method is to surf on channels. Advertisements on preview channels are used as entry points to other movies. Users can navigate and make selections from a remote control using hierarchical menus. Obviously, these approaches do not enable a user to access and browse the thousands of multimedia documents that are available on the Web or interactive TV.
A study of the different information needs shows that there is a common thread. For all kind of reasons, people more and more often need to be rapidly and easily informed about their environment. They want to have information about the resources or services located in different regions of the world, in rural, industrial or urban areas. This common need was identified long ago by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) providers, cartographic information providers and, more recently, by many Internet information providers.
These institutions and many others (e.g.: travel agencies, government agencies, local authorities, etc.) today provide geographic and cartographic information in the Web by means of several services. Basically, these services enable the user to access, browse or download many different types of digitized maps covering practically all regions of the world. Recently, due mainly to the widespread use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and in-vehicle computerized navigation systems, and the capability of millions of users to access the World Wide Web, “digital map publishing” has veritably exploded. Due to the widespread penetration of CD-ROM drives, a large number of geographic and cartographic titles are now available to owners of personal computers. Because Internet users can access GIS applications from their browsers without purchasing proprietary GIS software, WebGIS has the potential to make Distributed Geographic Information (DGI) available to a very large worldwide audience. Today WebGIS makes possible the addition of GIS functionality to a wide range of network-based applications in business, government, and education. Due to this rapid evolution, a vast storehouse of cartographic content is today accessible via the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web.
Even though electronic digital maps can be accessed and retrieved throughout the Web by any Internet device (e.g., by a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or a WAP enabled smart phone), some drawbacks persist. The retrieval, storage and display of a high resolution digital map requires high communication bandwidth, a large memory, and high graphic resolution. However, the wireless mobile environment, wherein small, economic, lightweight hand-held devices are commonly used (such as cell phones and Personal Digital Assistants), imposes limitations for transferring, storing, displaying and manipulating in a Web Browser large image files such as high resolution digital maps.
To overcome these limitations, several technologies are emerging. These technologies are intended to enable Internet service providers, telecommunications carriers, and Internet-based businesses to offer Web content (originally intended to be displayed on PCs and laptops) to users of wireless devices. For example, transcoders translate existing information and images on Web sites into a format readable by hand-held devices, such as cell phones, games consoles, PDAs or Web browsers installed in cars. One purpose of transcoding is, for example, to re-size a map. If a driver requests a street map from his car-based Web browser, the transcoding software can take a map originally designed for a PC-based browser and re-size it to fit the screen of the mobile device installed in the car. However, with the technology available today, a paper road map of normal size and resolution cannot be read comfortably after having been digitized, minimized, and displayed on a small screen. Thus, even though transcoding is a good solution to adapting the format of highly textual Web pages, this technique does not solve the problem of displaying, even with minimum comfort, a digitized version of a full size paper map on a small size and low resolution display of a cell phone.
On the other hand, people are very skillful at browsing through paper catalogs, magazines, newspapers, maps and books by flipping through the pages and glancing at pictures and text. Even though the enthusiasm of the public for new computer-based multimedia services has been seen by many analysts as a threat to conventional forms of hard-copy publishing, particularly book publishing, experience teaches that reading a book cannot be compared with reading an electronic document. In fact, today, reading paper copy remains preferable to most people, whether they are familiar with computers or not.
A Publication entitled “The Last Book”, (IBM Systems Journal, Vol 36, No. 3 Vol 36, No. 3-1997, by J. Jacobson, et al.), clearly illustrates the differences between printed books and computer screens in the following terms:                “A book represents a fundamentally different entity than a computer screen in that it is a physical embodiment of a large number of simultaneous high-resolution displays. When we turn the page, we do not lose the previous page. Through evolution the brain has developed a highly sophisticated spatial map. Persons familiar with a manual or textbook can find information that they are seeking with high specificity, as evidenced by their ability to remember whether something that was seen only briefly was on the right side or left side of a page, for instance. Furthermore their haptic connection with the brain's spatial map comprises a highly natural and effective interface, when such information is embodied on actual multiple physical pages.        Another aspect of embodying information on multiple, simultaneous pages is that of serendipity and comparison. We may leaf through a large volume of text and graphics, inserting a finger bookmark into those areas of greatest interest. Similarly, we may assemble a large body of similar matter in order to view elements in contrast to one another, such as might be done to determine which of a particular set of graphical designs is most satisfying”.        
The same arguments concerning the friendliness and usefulness of hard-copy books apply to hard-copy geographic maps. So even though the enthusiasm of the public for computer-based digital technology might be seen as a threat to conventional paper documents and maps, in reality the use of physical documents remains preferable to most people, whether they are skilled or not in using computers.
Nevertheless, physical documents sorely lack the many advantages provided by today's computer technology. Thus, there is a need for a way to enhance the usefulness of physical documents by providing the advantages of computer-based technology.